WASHINGTON, DC - NOVEMBER 25: U.S. President Barack Obama delivers a statement in the Roosevelt Room following a national security meeting in the Situation Room at the White House November 25, 2015 in Washington, DC. Obama said the American people should continue with their Thanksgiving holiday plans and "We are taking every possible step to keep our homeland safe". (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

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President Obama Bans Solitary Confinement For Juveniles In Federal Prisons

“How can we subject prisoners to unnecessary solitary confinement, knowing its effects, and then expect them to return to our communities as whole people?”

In an effort to expand his criminal justice reform, President Barack Obama announced a ban on juveniles in federal prison placed in solitary confinement. In an op-ed that will appear in The Washington Post on Tuesday (January 26) Barack Obama says the common practice has devastating and psychological effects.

The president also outlined further actions that prohibit federal correction officials from punishing prisoners who commit "low-level" infractions with solitary confinement. While Obama's reform applies broadly to the 10,000 federal inmates in solitary, only a handful of juveniles, 13 to be exact from September 2014 to September 2015, have been placed in confinement.

“How can we subject prisoners to unnecessary solitary confinement, knowing its effects, and then expect them to return to our communities as whole people?” the president wrote. “It doesn’t make us safer. It’s an affront to our common humanity.”

Obama's goal is that the reform at the federal level will motivate states to rethink their practices. According to reports, about a dozen states have have taken steps in the last two years to curtail use of solitary confinement. Illinois and Oregon, in response to lawsuits, also announced they will exclude seriously mentally ill inmates from solitary confinement as well.

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More tea is being spilled in the trial of pseudo-famous Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera. On Monday (Dec. 17), it was revealed in court that El Chapo went to the sister of a Colombian drug trafficker to cop methamphetamine for his Sinaloa drug cartel.

According to the New York Daily News, Jorge Milton Cifuentes Villa was one of the witnesses called to the stand during the 61-year-old's criminal preceding in the States. Chapo is being hit with a laundry list of charges including money laundering, conspiracy, firearms and international distribution of cocaine, meth, heroin, and marijuana.

Cifuentes confessed Chapo went behind his back and made a deal with his siblings who are also involved in their illegal activities to be a source for methamphetamine so that he can turn a profit in his business.

Cifuentes said that Chapo neglected the fact that meth is extremely addictive and can damage the physical and mental state of young people who consume it and purchased from his sister and brother, the drug's precursor ephedrine.

“Don Joaquín knows I (didn’t) like to f**k around with ephedrine,” Cifuentes said in the courtroom.

It wasn't until after a plane that carried Colombian-imported cocaine crashed on it's trip to Mexican that Cifuentes' siblings came clean and admitted they took a deal with Chapo as it the ephedrine was also in the cargo of the aircraft.

Cifuentes escaped to Venezuela in 2010 around the time these incidents were going down and changed his mind regarding meth out of desperation for money, saying that “Hunger made me change my mind."

Chapo faces life in prison if convicted of all charges.

READ MORE: A Man Claiming To Be El Chapo's Nephew Threatens To Have Tekashi Mother Deported

In a landslide decision, Florida police officers will now be able to enforce the state's controversial "stand your ground" law to claim self-defense according to the New York Times. The Stand Your Ground is a law passed by the Florida government in 2005 generally allowing people to stand their ground instead of retreating if they believe that doing so will "prevent death or great bodily harm," according to FindLaw.

According to Fox News 13, the judges ruled unanimously in a 7-0 vote that because the law is designed for "any person" who is acting in self-defense, that since cops are technically people, they too should be included under the protections.

Though many cops and politicians are elated about the decision, many people of color have expressed their outrage. Being that police officer rarely face punishment in racially charged shootings at the hands of law enforcement, members of Black Lives Matter have come forth to speak their minds.

“Police officers already have full immunity to kill us at will,” said Tiffany Burks, a Black Lives Matter Alliance Broward activist. “This is an extra bonus on top of that. It really is a slap in the face — a blatant one at that.”

This case was reportedly triggered by an incident in 2013, where Jermaine McBean, a mentally ill man, was shot and killed after walking down an Oakland Parkway with an unloaded rifle slug. After entering an apartment complex he was approached by three Broward County sheriff’s deputies who requested for him to drop the weapons. He was unable to hear because he was wearing headphones.

The officer maintains that Mcbean turned his gun on him, but there are witnesses supporting the notion that he never pointed the weapon in the cops direction.

READ MORE: Alabama Mall Gunman Still On The Run After Police Kill Aspiring Solider

Kenneka Jenkins' family is reportedly taking legal action against the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Rosemont, Illinois after the teen was discovered dead in the hotel kitchen's walk-in freezer, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Jenkins' mother, Tereasa Martin has filed a $50 million lawsuit against the hotel, alleging that the staff were responsible for her daughter's untimely death.

The lawsuit names the hotel, F&F Realty, Capital Security, and Investigations and Murray Bros. Caddyshack – the restaurant that leased the kitchen – as liable for Jenkins' death. Martin claims the hotel and other parties failed to secure dangerous areas and hire competent staff to monitor them.

According to court documents, the hotel and security staff ignored multiple warnings about the group of people that were partying in the hotel room where Jenkins was ahead of her disappearance. The lawsuit noted that Jenkins passed several hotel staff members who should have seen that she was in an altered state and prevented her from entering the kitchen.

Hotel personnel also neglected to thoroughly review security footage after learning of Jenkins' disappearance. If they had done so, "they would have been able to locate her which would have prevented her death,” according to the lawsuit. As result of the incident, Jenkins' family claims they suffered tremendous "conscious, physical pain and suffering," humiliation, and loss of wages.

As previously reported, 19-year-old Jenkins attended a hotel room party on the ninth floor of the Crowne Plaza on Sept. 9, 2017, around 1:13 a.m. in a fully coherent state, the lawsuit claims. Around 2:30 a.m. Jenkins' and friends reportedly were leaving the party when she realized she had lost her phone. Two hours later, friends told Martin that her daughter was missing. After Martin contacted the hotel desk, security reviewed the surveillance footage, but did not find anything at the time. Jenkins was officially reported missing at 12:36 p.m. on Sept. 9.

Jenkins was found 21 hours after she was reported missing. Her body was discovered in a double-door walk-in freezer located in an unused kitchen that was accessible to the general public, the lawsuit said. The sticker on the door of the freezer, which contained instruction on how to open was barely visible.

Upon further review, surveillance videos show Jenkins stumbling into the kitchen and walking toward the freezer around 3:32 a.m. She was reportedly visibly inebriated at the time.

Jenkins was pronounced dead on Sept. 10, 2017. Her death was a ruled an accident caused by hypothermia, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

In addition to the damages regarding her death, Jenkins' family is suing to cover the expenses of her funeral, which was held last year.